Film

if....

Name: if....
Genre: Drama
Released: 1968
Cast: Malcolm McDowell, David Wood, Richard Warwick, Christine Noonan, Rupert Webster

Lindsay Anderson's fractured, surreal assault on the English public school system follows Malcolm McDowell's Mick Travis from simmering resentment to full insurrection. Shot partly in unexplained black-and-white, blending documentary starkness with fantasy, it's less a plotted story than an escalating mood - funny, cruel, dreamlike. Anyone who has ever hated an institution from the inside will recognise the pulse beneath its stylised chaos.

TMDb rating

7.0

If you liked this

A Clockwork Orange1971

McDowell reunites with anarchic menace under Kubrick, playing another young man turning violence into theatre against a controlling system - if you loved his gleam here, this is the extreme version.

But Its ultraviolence and moral coldness go further than if.... ever does, and some find it gratuitous rather than pointed.

Dead Poets Society1989

Another all-boys school, another charismatic disruption of the established order - but here rebellion is romantic and tearful rather than nihilistic, a warmer mirror to Anderson's cold fury.

But It's sentimental where if.... is savage; if you want the anger without the uplift, this may feel soft.

Kes1970

Made a year later by British contemporaries, this working-class counterpoint swaps posh corridors for a Yorkshire estate but shares the same fury at institutions that grind down the individual.

But It's quieter and sadder, with none of if....'s surreal violence or dark comic release.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Zero for Conduct1933

Anderson openly borrowed the structure and spirit of Vigo's film - same institution, same slow-building insurrection, same final explosion of anarchic joy. This is where if.... actually comes from.

Jean Vigo's anarchic short about a boys' boarding school revolt was the direct inspiration for Anderson's film - the same march toward rebellion, thirty-five years earlier and twice as strange.

But Silent-era pacing and a 44-minute runtime demand patience most modern viewers aren't used to giving a film this old.

Lord of the Flies1963

Strip away the adults entirely and you get this: British boys, hierarchy, and the swift collapse into savagery - the primal version of the same argument.

But Rougher production values and a bleaker, more literal descent into chaos than if....'s stylised rebellion.

Fight Club1999

Swap blazers for basements and you get another story of young men building an insurrection against a system that's slowly suffocating them, complete with charismatic ringleader and shocking climax.

But Its late-90s irony and twist-driven plotting are a different animal from if....'s dreamy, elliptical structure.

The Breakfast Club1985

A gentler American cousin - detention instead of dormitories - but it shares if....'s interest in how institutions sort people into roles they didn't choose.

But Far tamer and more talky; there's no violence, no surrealism, just teenagers arguing in a library.

Election1999

Payne's high school satire trades Anderson's dreamlike menace for sharp comic bite, but both skewer the absurd theatre of institutional power and who gets to hold it.

But It's a comedy first, with none of if....'s violence or ambiguity - more cutting than incendiary.

Rebel Without a Cause1955

The granddaddy of stylish youth rebellion on screen - James Dean's restless fury against a world of hollow authority figures set the template Anderson later detonated.

But Its melodrama and 1950s Hollywood gloss feel a world away from if....'s scruffy, anti-establishment texture.

Pink Floyd: The Wall1982no page yet

Another assault on English schooling turned into surreal spectacle, this time set to music and animation - the same rage against hollow education, blown up operatic.

But It's a fever-dream rock opera more than a film, and its self-pity can tip into indulgence.

Battle Royale2000

Same core structure: an institution's brutal hierarchy pushed until the young turn its own logic - and its weapons - back on their captors. if.... whispers it; this one screams it.

Take if....'s premise - young people trapped inside a system designed to control them - and blow it up into gleeful, gory genre spectacle where the students are armed and set loose on each other.

But It's pulpy and violent in a completely different register - pure exploitation thrill rather than art-house provocation.

The White Ribbon2009

Both films trace how rigid hierarchies and unquestioned authority breed the very violence they claim to prevent - one through a school's slow revolt, the other through a village's quiet rot.

Haneke's austere black-and-white study of a repressive German village just before World War One asks the same question if.... asks - where does institutional cruelty actually lead - but answers it with dread instead of anarchy.

But It's glacially paced, subtitled, and offers no release valve of rebellion or dark comedy - just mounting unease.